July 28, 2025

I always voted at my party’s call, And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911), English writer of comic verse, H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), Jay p.152

Does this describe you? Or do you sometimes kick over the traces? Not publicly, of course, but maybe in caucus? Sometimes? Never?

The Pinaforean lyric is amusing, but in its defense, note the following. Absenting minority governments, the Westminster model—in which the executive (the prime minister and her cabinet) leads the party with a majority of supporters in the lower house—has this one benefit: the government has the freedom to enact the program on which it was elected and to have it reviewed at the next election. Effectively, the upper house, if it exists, is all but powerless, and the head of state is really only a figurehead. So, no filibusters, no supermajority votes, no procedural obstructions. Isn’t that refreshing in many ways—all because the majority’s members vote at their party’s call?